


At the End

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-17
Updated: 2006-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      Bundles of thanks to the lovely <lj user="roadstergal"> and <lj user="lady_draco"> for betaing this, and <lj user="cobos"> for his support. And last but not least, to my recipient and Yuletide for allowing me to expand my writing horizons!<p>Written for Raindrops on Roses</p>
    </blockquote>





	At the End

**Author's Note:**

> Bundles of thanks to the lovely  <lj user="roadstergal"> and <lj user="lady_draco"> for betaing this, and <lj user="cobos"> for his support. And last but not least, to my recipient and Yuletide for allowing me to expand my writing horizons!
> 
> Written for Raindrops on Roses

 

 

The sun hung low on the horizon as the robed, hooded figure of a girl meticulously made its way up the mountainside of a small Ramptops village. It was rather wet and cold, and her stylish yet affordable boots kept slipping on this rock and that. A more poetically inclined person might be tempted to describe the day a not a very nice one on which to die, but Susan Sto-Helit knew better. That tended to come with the job she was holding temporarily. Again. It was never a good day to die. It might, occasionally, be a good day for someone _else_ to die,* but Susan had never been a great fan of that theory either. Right now she was anxious to get the job ahead of her done, before moving on to the next, and the one after that, and the one after that, until the latest crisis her grandfather had gotten himself mixed up in was finally over. Then, she decided, she would have tea.

You could probably describe it as a cottage, if you were a charitable sort of person. Susan did not feel particularly charitable at the moment. That it was a witches' cottage was evident even from this distance; it was the way it seemed to stay erect on by sheer force of will. Witches, Susan knew, were big on force of will. Stubborn. Well, she couldn't fault them for that. A figure was barely visible outside what would have been a gate, had there been a gate. Or a fence. It had a tall, pointy hat. Susan sighed. Witches were never easy.

A gust of wind swept her robe dramatically as she approached, and Susan winced. She did not Approve of theatrics. It was on par with being ingratiatingly cute, and Having Airs. Leaning on her scythe, she struck what she desperately hoped would not look like any kind of Pose, and steeled herself for what was to come. There would be a comment, she knew. Some jibe about having 'thought you would be taller' or 'you're looking lively today' or any number of other hilarious observations people felt the need to make. And this, Susan realized to her horror, would be all the worse, becasue this was a witch. An old and strict-looking one, at that. Those were the worst. There would be something about having expected someone else or being late, or us girls having to stick together, or...

"Nice dress. Sensible." The woman nodded, curtly. Susan felt an unexpected surge of pride, as though having pleased the old lady was a considerable achievement; something she should be proud of. She shook it off.

"Thank you," she said, fighting the urge to curtsy.

"A little too frilly for my tastes, but no nonsense about it. And black. You can't go wrong with black. Someone ought to tell that to some of the young gels I see strutting about the place."

"Quite so." She was a tall, stately woman. Not attractive, by any meaning of the word, but somehow... appealing. In the way a fly trap is appealing to a fly. And there were, Susan could clearly see, no frills on her dress. It seemed to laugh at the very idea.

The witch coughed politely, holding up a surprisingly young-looking hand. There were veins, certainly, and the skin was wrinkled, but it bore the signs of having been well taken care of. "Off messin' with things again then, is he?" She gave Susan an inquisitive look - not unfriendly.

"Yes," Susan replied, before she even had time to consider whether or not she should reply. She snapped her mouth shut in surprised indignation.

The old woman seemed amused. "The fate of the universe at stake again, I expect? Ah well." Her eyes narrowed, and she seemed to look past Susan, as though she was looking for something in the darkness behind her.

Susan shifted her weight from one foot to the other. They were dawdling, which was another thing she most definitely did not Approve of. She had the distinct feeling, however, that what she did and did not approve of, capitalization notwithstanding, mattered not one bit in the presence of this woman. Even the sparse trees seemed to bow to her in reverence. Oh, what nonsense - it was the wind. The wind that failed to lift her skirts more than half an inch off the ground. Oh, this was getting quite ridiculous. She had to say _something_. "It is time."

Black fabric swirled as an angry, impressively nosed face turned sharply towards Susan. "No, it bleedin' well isn't!" she snapped. "A witch knows her time, gel."

"Yes..." Susan hesitated, hating herself for it. "I merely assumed..."

There came a dismissive snort. "Assumed indeed." She looked Susan up and down. Those clear, bright blue irises were quite something to be eyed by. "You've had some Education done to you. I can tell. It leaves a sort of smell. Like unaired cupboards."

Susan did not try very hard to keep the chill out of her voice. "Really." She searched her mind for a suitably intelligent and scathing remark, when something struck her. Something rather embarrassing. "You're not dead," she said, flatly.

"Hah. Of course not." The woman, obviously quite substantial indeed, had turned her attention, once again, to whatever was going on behind Susan's back. Susan resisted the urge to turn. She would know if there was something there.

Wouldn't she?

"Any moment now," the old witch mumbled. Susan watched her. Her stance held something that was not quite pride - more of an irrefutable knowledge that you were better than most people around. It was spellbinding. Although not, she hoped, literally.

They remained there in amicable silence for a minute or so, until the sounds of the wind and the landscape around them had become just a part of the background. And then... there was the flutter of tiny wings, as a sparrow thrilled past them, straight into the open door of the cottage ahead. Susan gasped.

The old woman smiled. "There. I must say I was beginning to worry. Not like Minerva to be tardy."

Minerva. With some degree of nervousness, Susan reached into the folds of her robe, and brought forth a handsomely carved wooden hourglass. As she watched, the final grains of sand dropped from the uppermost bell to the one below, underneath which the name 'Minerva Goodlouse' had been neatly inscribed. Saying nothing, she replaced it, and stood upright once more, lifting the scythe above her head, the moonlight-sharpened blade weighing next to nothing. She concentrated, and swung it expertly. Nothing very pointedly happened. "I take it your name is not Minerva Goodlouse," she said, meeting that icy-blue gaze.

Was there a soft chuckle? "Me? No, child. My name is Weatherwax. _Mistress_ ," she added, with emphasis, as she turned towards the cottage, where a slightly luminescent figure was emerging. "Evenin', Minerva."

The figure blinked. "Esme? Oh dear, I feel all a-flutter still." She smiled apologetically, stepping out of the door. She looked quite young, Susan thought, but there was no telling what the body she had left behind looked like, of course. She was wearing a rather sensible, but if unfortunately quite red dress.

"Steady on, woman. Don't keep this young lady waiting." That brisk voice was not one to be disobeyed, and so Minerva did not, making her way steadily towards Susan.

"I say," she Minerva said, once there, straightening her dress and beaming, "jolly shame you're not coming with me, Esme. This will be quite the adventure." The words left her mouth, and Minerva's face seemed to collapse unto itself. "Oh. Oh, I... I didn't mean it like that, you know, I..." Her hands made little darting, fluttery motions, like that those of tiny wings.

Mistress Weatherwax smiled. It gave the faint impression of a recumbent predatory animal. "That's quite all right, Minerva. Now just you get along, and I'll handle things here."

Minerva nodded hesitantly, and turned towards Susan. "I think," she said, reflectively, "I should like to go somewhere new. Somewhere," she raised an eyebrow to at her surroundings, "warm. Would that be all right?"

Susan forced a smile. "That isn't really..." she began, before feeling a distinctly ice-blue-ish kind of breeze on the side of her face. "Yes," she finished. "I'm sure that can be arranged." Somewhere to her side, unseen but not unfelt, Mistress Weatherwax nodded.

"I suppose I will be needing something like this." Frowning, Minerva drew a line in the air in front of her, waving her hand in what seemed like a random pattern towards the end of it. A glowing yellow trail followed her finger as it moved, leaving behind, as she finished, the outline of a serviceable broomstick. It hung there in the air, pulsating slightly as she lowered her hands and looked at it, critically. Then, having apparently come to some decision or other, she reached out and grabbed it by the handle, which materialized into the ghost of sturdy wood in her hand. "Yes," she said, sounding pleased, "this will do quite nicely." Lifting her skirts daintily, she got onto it, climbing into air as thin as herself, and floating gently upon it.

Susan watched her, unsure of what to say. She detested not knowing what to say; it gave her the disturbing feeling of being at an exam for which she had not revised.

Minerva lifted her head to the stars, and sighed. Then, stifling a giggle, she gave Susan what she probably felt was a rather cheeky wink. "You know, I always thought you would be taller." Before Susan could open her mouth in reply, the dead witch was already soaring upwards; wind, and a shouted "us girls have to stick together, you know," falling away from her like the cast off remains of a pupa that had become a butterfly.

"Silly woman."

"I beg your pardon?" said Susan, who had been thinking the same thing.

Mistress Weatherwax crossed her arms over her chest, peering at the disappearing speck in the dark night sky. "Spending yer last moments in this life in someone else's body. Said she wanted to see Lancre from up above for one last time. I don't hold with it. Borrowing," she added, seeing Susan's perplexed face, "on yer deathbed. Though it's not my place to judge, of course." Her voice gave every indication that she felt this was, in fact, the opposite of what was the case.

"Yes. Well. I expect you have work to do." The scythe felt smooth and even in her hands, as always, and Susan gave it an experimental twirl, seeing the old woman's eyes dart towards it. It was only for a moment, but it was a look you saw a lot in her grandfather's job.

"As do you."

A Moment passed between them as their eyes locked, quietly slinking away when it realized that nothing dramatic was going to happen. There was only this; two women, a hilltop, an old house, the wind and the rain, and inside a rickety old cottage, a newly dead witch.

When Mistress Weatherwax spoke, the impression she gave was not one of defeat, but something... _else_ that Susan could not quite put her finger on. It would seem an entirely different sort of finger would be needed. "I'll see you again, won't I?"

Susan mentally ran through a list of suitable replies. It was rather a short list. In the end, she settled for a quick smile. Then, with a nod, she turned, and walked back into the darkness.

For rather a long time, Granny Weatherwax remained, watching the girl; feeling her power. Then, because she was a witch, and this was what real witching was all about, she Weatherwax turned to walk quietly into the cottage. Soon, it would be Hogswatch, and there were Mister Ploughson's pigs to consider, and getting Miranda's funeral all done well before the midnight feast, and then there would be Gytha's party to endure. And then, all else taken care of, there would be time to consider a young girl in a dark robe with a scythe, and what would come, in the end, for Esmeralda Weatherwax.

* T'dr'duzk b'hzg t't, as the dwarfs said.

 


End file.
